Before Mario, Zelda and Donkey Kong pixilated themselves into our lives 25 years ago, people played board games. In our house, Chutes and Ladders reigned supreme. Essentially you navigated the board of squares. Landing on a square with a good deed sent you up a ladder. A square with a bad deed sent you spiraling down a chute in a fit of shame. To drive the 2011 Hyundai Sonata is to experience a real-world application of Chutes and Ladders. It has many, many good attributes that sends it up ladder after ladder.

A fire that raced through an apartment house Tuesday killed three children, but two were saved when firefighters climbed through flames to pluck them from a window. "I've never seen anything as brave," Deputy Chief Douglas Moran said of Lt. Chris Reynolds, the first up the ladder. "From now on I am calling him Sir ." Five families lived in the five-story building, and at least 19 people were inside when the blaze broke out before 7 a.m. in this Connecticut River mill city.

And I could tell What form my dreaming was about to take. Magnified apples appear and disappear Stem end and blossom end, And every fleck of russet showing clear. My instep arch not only keeps the ache, It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round. I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend. And I keep hearing from the cellar bin The rumbling sound Of load of apples coming in. --Robert Frost, from "After Apple-Picking

An 18-year-old East German man used a ladder to clamber over the Berlin Wall to the West, police said Friday. They said he dodged border patrols and then climbed over the wall into West Berlin's Neukoelln district Thursday night.

The most dangerous job during the Nissan Open Sunday belonged to Warren White, the guy who climbed the ladder and manually changed the numbers on the large scoreboard behind the 18th green at Riviera Country Club. White's partner, Scott McOwan, received updates on each player through his walkie-talkie. Every time one of the leaders completed a hole, up the ladder White went to add a number. The rain Sunday made getting up that ladder a little tricky. White, however, was not deterred.

I take issue with the final sentence of your article, which states, "and even today, lumber prices are no greater in constant dollars than during the late 1970s." I own a ladder manufacturer and we buy Douglas fir from Oregon in carload quantities. Through the late '70s and the '80s we paid $1.00-$1.50 per foot. Last year we paid $2.85 per foot. This year we are paying $4.35 per foot and there appears to be no end in sight. We make ground ladders for the Los Angeles Fire Department and this rapid cost escalation is forcing us into ladder price increases--a direct extra burden on the city and the taxpayers.

Sunday brought us another WWE pay-per-view event, this time "TLC", short for Tables, Ladders and Chairs. The main event: Unifying the WWE championship and the World Heavyweight Championship with a match between John Cena and Randy Orton. The results of the entire card: FANDANGO VS. DOLPH ZIGGLER Fandango won with a legdrop off the top rope as the decline of Ziggler, who should be one of the top stars on the roster, continues. C.M. PUNK VS. THE SHIELD The break-up of The Shield continues, as Punk won this one after Roman Reigns accidentally speared Dean Ambrose.

Among firefighters there's a term for what happened at the Palomar Hotel last week. It was a "career fire"--the worst in a career. Nine days after the Hollywood apartment building exploded in an arson attempt that went awry, some firefighters continue to second-guess themselves for failing to save Norma Galindo, who fell to her death before their eyes after passing her two children to safety. They keep trying to figure how they might have gotten a few feet farther in a few seconds less. Capt.

Pamela Knox doesn't remember exactly how many times she has driven down that street near downtown Toledo, Ohio, but she knows it's been a lot. Then on Wednesday, while returning home from errands, her 2010 Chevy Malibu suddenly plunged into the dark. “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!” the 60-year-old elementary school principal cried as she felt the car continue sinking. Her husband, Kenny Knox, 53, was headed to work when he noticed emergency vehicles going the other way. Then he got a call.

A toddler drowned and his sister clung to life after the two apparently clambered up a ladder and fell into a backyard pool during a family get-together Sunday at their aunt's Rancho Cucamonga home, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department. Eddie Figueroa, 18 months old, died after being rushed to San Antonio Community Hospital in Upland.